Album: Mingus
Recorded: 1978-79
Recorded: 1978-79
Released: June 1979
Songs / length: 11 / 37:20
Mingus marks the endpoint of Joni's jazz trajectory in the late 70s. During that period, she had encountered many jazz greats – Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, etc – but it was her meeting of minds with the colossus of the upright bass, Charles Mingus, who at that point was diagnosed with ALS / motor neurone disease and wheelchair-bound, that led to the spark for her next album. In 1978, in his final year of life aged 55, Mingus approached Joni after being impressed by Paprika Plains and the way Joni was stretching her musical horizons with Jaco Pastorius.
A love of musical purity was their common bond. Mingus had played with three titans of jazz – Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker – and disliked anyone falsifying an emotion (a "phony note", as he called them). He saw that purity in Joni. Nearing the end of his career, Mingus was looking to create his own compositions and was exploring the Latin music of cumbia. His other original idea was to create a musical accompaniment to TS Eliot's Four Quartets, and so he composed the last six melodies of his life with a view to Joni writing accompanying lyrics.
Joni had never put her voice or lyrics to someone else's music before, but for the extraordinary figure of Mingus she made an exception. This accounts for how unique an album Mingus is in Joni's discography – Death pervades the record, and the resulting musical tempo is slow. Mitchell worked on this vast project for a year and a half and completed all the album's songs, except God Must Be A Boogie Man, before Mingus' death in January 1979. This is one of two songs composed entirely by Joni, the other being The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey, which for me is a rare highlight.
The song feels like a breath of fresh air on a sombre and meandering record, and I really like Jaco's playing on this and The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines. Jaco arranged the horns on the latter track and the musical accompaniment gives the song a more upbeat feel than elsewhere on the album. Listening to early Mingus records, you get the sense of a musician full of zest and verve, but here on tracks like Sweet Sucker Dance and A Chair In The Sky it all feels very downbeat.
I'm also not a fan of the musical skits or "raps", as they don't really integrate so well with the songs. Among the Mingus compositions, my favourite by far is Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, a tribute to saxophonist Lester Young with lyrics written by Joni. Though I'm no expert on the quality of the jazz playing, I do love the sound of Herbie Hancock's Rhodes electric piano on this track, accompanied by Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone.
Mingus marked the end of an era for Joni, as the first of her 70s albums not to go gold and also the end of her collaborations with Jaco. It is also by far the least satisfying of her records up to that point and, as was the case with her peers Dylan and Young, the 80s would be a musical wilderness for her. Like them too, though, there would be a late career resurgence but that's a story for another time.
Highlights: The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey, The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
Album rating: C+
Mingus marks the endpoint of Joni's jazz trajectory in the late 70s. During that period, she had encountered many jazz greats – Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Miles Davis, etc – but it was her meeting of minds with the colossus of the upright bass, Charles Mingus, who at that point was diagnosed with ALS / motor neurone disease and wheelchair-bound, that led to the spark for her next album. In 1978, in his final year of life aged 55, Mingus approached Joni after being impressed by Paprika Plains and the way Joni was stretching her musical horizons with Jaco Pastorius.
A love of musical purity was their common bond. Mingus had played with three titans of jazz – Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker – and disliked anyone falsifying an emotion (a "phony note", as he called them). He saw that purity in Joni. Nearing the end of his career, Mingus was looking to create his own compositions and was exploring the Latin music of cumbia. His other original idea was to create a musical accompaniment to TS Eliot's Four Quartets, and so he composed the last six melodies of his life with a view to Joni writing accompanying lyrics.
Joni had never put her voice or lyrics to someone else's music before, but for the extraordinary figure of Mingus she made an exception. This accounts for how unique an album Mingus is in Joni's discography – Death pervades the record, and the resulting musical tempo is slow. Mitchell worked on this vast project for a year and a half and completed all the album's songs, except God Must Be A Boogie Man, before Mingus' death in January 1979. This is one of two songs composed entirely by Joni, the other being The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey, which for me is a rare highlight.
The song feels like a breath of fresh air on a sombre and meandering record, and I really like Jaco's playing on this and The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines. Jaco arranged the horns on the latter track and the musical accompaniment gives the song a more upbeat feel than elsewhere on the album. Listening to early Mingus records, you get the sense of a musician full of zest and verve, but here on tracks like Sweet Sucker Dance and A Chair In The Sky it all feels very downbeat.
I'm also not a fan of the musical skits or "raps", as they don't really integrate so well with the songs. Among the Mingus compositions, my favourite by far is Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, a tribute to saxophonist Lester Young with lyrics written by Joni. Though I'm no expert on the quality of the jazz playing, I do love the sound of Herbie Hancock's Rhodes electric piano on this track, accompanied by Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone.
Mingus marked the end of an era for Joni, as the first of her 70s albums not to go gold and also the end of her collaborations with Jaco. It is also by far the least satisfying of her records up to that point and, as was the case with her peers Dylan and Young, the 80s would be a musical wilderness for her. Like them too, though, there would be a late career resurgence but that's a story for another time.
Highlights: The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey, The Dry Cleaner From Des Moines, Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
Album rating: C+
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